Should you go halfers on a site if they finance it?

​ Dwayne Lafleur, founder and CEO of Ezoic, [tweeted]() recently the following: ​ ​ It's an interesting proposition. Should you take someone up on an offer like that? I can tell you it interests me. When you see some projected numbers below, you'll see why (from the publisher's perspective). My current growth bottleneck is lack of funds. I could come up with 10 new niches to jump in before I finish writing this email. I have no shortage of content ideas. I never run out of keywords to target. With WriterAccess I can order up almost unlimited content. Speaking of WriterAccess, for limited time if you give them a shot, you start with $100 free credit towards content. [Sign up here](=). I have a large team of VAs who can format and publish plenty of content. I can easily hire and train more. In other words, I have the infrastructure to publish publish publish. The bottleneck is lack of cash. Sound familiar? I bet it does. Most of us can easily spend more on content and links (if you invest in links) than we earn each month. So, should you enter into a 50/50 deal where you do the work and the other party finances the site? I did this once with a college buddy. It worked out reasonably well. We each walked away with profit after selling. More importantly, it was fun to do it with him. What about arms length? It's not a terrible idea, especially for the publisher as you'll see below. I think potential is also decent for the investor depending on their expectations. My guess is one condition of the offer is you must put Ezoic ads on the site. I could easily live with that. The million dollar question is how much money is an investor willing to invest? If it's $2K, I wouldn't be interested. $2K isn't exactly going to turn into a profitable site. It wouldn't be worth the time looking for a domain name. If it's a duffel bag of $3 million, I'm in. I can blow that on content pretty fast. That would be a big, lucrative site in three years and I'd get 50% just for overseeing operations. It boils down to how much the investment is. There are other considerations such as: - When does the site sell? Who decides? - How are disagreements handled? - Who chooses article topics and keywords? - Can you build links or not? What's the amount of risk you can take with the site? After all, since it's OPM (other people's money), you might be inclined to take more risk. - Do you owe nothing in the event the site goes nowhere or ultimately crashes and burns? ​ I'm pretty certain Dwayne isn't going to hand over $3 million to a single publisher. So what amount of investment makes sense? What does $50K do for a niche site? Here are some broad strokes numbers with a $50K investment: 500 articles published. Probably a bit more but I like to be conservative. What's the ROI? Assuming an average of 300 visitors per article per month with an ad RPM of $30, the site after 12 to 24 months would be getting 500 x 300 visitors = 150,000. That's $4,500 per month valuing the site at $150,000 to $200,000. Let's call it $175,000. Your 50% nets you $87,500. Investor gets $87,500. As you can see, it's a good deal for the publisher especially if you have a team in place that does most of the work. It's not that great for the investor. Although in Dwayne's case, Ezoic profits decently from the ad revenue as well. It's a high-risk investment that doesn't double after 2 years. On the other hand, compared to investing in the stock market or bonds, that's a good return. It depends on what kind of return the investor is looking for. What about a $100K investment from an investor? That ends up a better but it's more risk for the investor. Using the same figures above, that would result in 1,000+/- articles earning $9,000 with an approximate $360,000 valuation. Divide that in two, both parties get $180,000. That's a very sweet deal for the publisher. After all, it's $180K for not doing much if you outsource everything. For the investor it's a good ROI but not amazing. Potential problems for the publisher (that's you): One big issue for you, the publisher, is that when someone hands you $50K or more, you have a boss. You'll have to provide updates. They'll hassle you as to why you aren't making faster progress. They might demand changes on the site. Who knows, maybe they'll be cool and leave you alone. You don't know that for sure. I have to admit for the publisher this type of arrangement is overall good. If the site doesn't perform great it's still going to result in something. Any revenue and sale dollars is profit. My time involved on a passive 1,000 page build could be as little three or four days. Once the content is ordered, I could leave it to a team. Wait 2 to 3 years and cash that sucker out. Not so bad. Does that mean I'm going to do it? I'm not going to look for such deals. I suppose if someone pitched me I'd consider it but I'd set out conditions that favor me such as full editorial and monetization control. Speaking of cashing out, if you're looking to cash out, The Website Flip is offering a boutique broker service for only 3% commission. Here's how it works: => [Submit your site here](​ They will vet your site. If it's a site they wish to try and sell, they'll take it on. If they sell it via their network of 11,000 potential buyers, you only pay a 3% commission. Please note they don't take on every site. The reason it's only 3% is they won't deal with any of the transaction details. They merely bring buyer and seller together. After that the execution of the deal is between you and buyer. If your site doesn't sell, you owe nothing and are free to list with a traditional broker. It's a no-brainer IMO. => [Submit your site to sell here](. A few free resources very much worth checking out (in no particular order): I've been somewhat active on [Twitter]( lately. I've met some amazing folks there in this biz. They're not just in this biz, but they're killing it in this biz. Taking niche sites to a whole other level. I follow all of them on Twitter. I'm on all their email lists. I suggest you check them out: => Niche Site Lady: [Email newsletter](=) | [Twitter](​ => Miles Beckler: [Email newsletter]( | [Twitter]()​ => Mike (Niche Twins): [Email newsletter]() | [Twitter]()​ Jon Fatstacksblog.com ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ [Unsubscribe]( | [Update your profile]( | 2016 Hill Drive, North Vancouver, British Columbia V7H 2N5